The advent of civilization has caused the proliferation of conveniences such as pipe lines supplying water and combustible gas such as natural gas to homes and businesses. Public utilities usually formulate the distribution of water and gas services in the form of networks with certain primary valves due to their importance in controlling the flow of gas to a high occupancy building such as a hospital, school, or shopping center, or to a district regulator valve controlling gas flow to a district regulator which is a buried mechanical device utilized for controlling pressures from a higher pressure to a lower pressure distribution system often consisting of older cast iron pipe or polyethylene pipe with restricting limits on strength to withstand pressures.
Being able to locate and to distinguish a primary valve or a district regulator valve from other valves can be critical to terminating the flow of the combustible gas and avoiding a fire being started or increased, or avoiding a dangerous explosion which can potential harm many people and create large economic loss.
In the prior art, the location of gas valves and the like has been based on coordinates using landmarks such as telephone poles. It is, however, naive to assume that telephone poles and other such landmarks would not be relocated due to changing conditions. For example, the telephone company may, for many reasons such as an automobile severely damaging a telephone pole, replace a telephone pole with another telephone pole positioned differently from the original telephone pole. This has happened and the ensuing misinformation was costly. In addition, it is possible for the valve cover to be covered inadvertently during road improvements and other projects, or for the valve cover to be hidden from view by water collecting over it due to local flooding or sinking of the valve cover over a period of time to form a concave cavity allowing the collection of water.
Another problem associated with valve covers and valves is possible corrosive damage to the valve, particularly the valve stem from brine produced from salt used to melt ice and other seepage, including chemical spills, entering the valve box.
Yet another problem is vandalism and unauthorized access, including but not limited to sabotage.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a valve cover system to minimize and to overcome the myriad of problems of prior art valve covers and systems.